Wing Chun - Pros and Cons

[pvwingchun]

Drunken Monkey

 

Check your pm for my info about who and where I train I don't care to share that with the world.

 

The groundfighting is something that we have only recently implemented on a regular basis, we used to do it hit and miss. This is part of our regular class curriculum and not voluntary. We feel it is an important piece of the puzzle. We have some wrestlers now and occassionaly a grappler or two training with us so there insight is valuable.

[jeffrogers]

good training

[Prodigal Son]

This is not meant to be an aggressive "burn" post, saying that Wing Chun is useless or anything like that. This is only an account of my experience sparring against Wing Chun practitioners.

 

E.g. Recently I sparred with a man in excellent physical shape with over 8 years of Wing Chun experience (and you could tell, watching him warm up. His techniques were very crisp). He used Wing Chun and I used boxing. We went for three 3-minute rounds. I used boxing gloves and he used small, open-finger gloves.

 

Since Wing Chun is not a long range striking style like boxing can be, but more of a medium/close range style, it was surprisingly easy to keep out of his range while continually hitting him with good boxing punches.

 

(Please don't post a bunch of denfeces about how Wing Chun can be a long range style is you know what you are doing and truly understand the techniques and blah blah blah - this is not a burn post. This is just my experiences with these fighters. Also, be honest with ourselves here, we know that the main focus of Wing Chun techniques is at medium or close range compared to this distance many boxers can effectively fight from. Again, please don't bother with the defensive posts).

 

So since his techniques focused on a range that I was able to effectively avoid, I ended up watching a lot of techniques being attempted in the air as I used the good footwork developed of hours and hours of sparring to hit at will, then move out of the way and any counters. The techinques I was faced with were somewhat unorthadox compared to the very basic boxing repetoir I was used to facing, but they just weren't able to land once I had devised a solid strategy to keep him away from me (our reaches and heights were very close to identicle).

 

When I opted to go in close now and then, we did end up both trading blows and he managed to get a number of shots in (for obvious reasons).

 

One thing that became prominant in the fight was that he had not experienced the feigns and deceptive techniques that boxing entails. Thus the use of feigns successfully lead to a lot of openings. Granted feigns are something I hone a lot more than the next guy, but they worked particularily well compared to usual. This may be because he sparred primarily against people within his own style, and thus hadn't encountered feigning as much as boxers tend to (I honestly do not know how much feigning is taught in Wing Chun classes, and am sure it depends entirely upon the teacher), or it could have been that Wing Chun does not stress blocking with minimal movement to prevent these openings as much as it could (this is not to say that it ws horrendous and any feign would have worked until the end of time, just that there was definately room for improvement). Another very likely possibility is that the Wing Chun principle of manipulating whatever tool is presented to you in order to create openings, though good against a real attack, definately has the weakness of being succeptable to feigns.

 

The last important factor in the fight was that, though muscular, young, and in good shape, he just wasn't used to fighting for as long as boxers are. By the end of the fight he was exhausted while my boxing conditioning had me still a fresh fighter. So perhaps Wing Chun practioners who are training as more than just a recreational activity can improve their endurance training a bit to avoid this. I can see many people already, all wanting to argue that a real fight wouldn't have lasted that long and he wouldn't have needed that conditioning. We were fighting at high contact and I was in control to the point where I could have made the fight last an hour had I wanted to. So even though he had 8+ years of training (much more than the amount of boxing training I have), he truly needed that extra conditioning.

 

Now, this is not a huge post about how greate boxing is; boxing has a lot of downfalls that we are all aware of. Again, this is not a burn post about how bad Wing Chun is and how greate boxing is, so please don't go nuts with counters to everything I have said here. I train in much more than boxing for the very reason that I am always the first to admit that it is not perfect. This thread, however, is about the pros and cons of Wing Chun, and I noticed a lack of cons (and all styles have cons...). All of this is an account of a particular high-contact match I had against a very good Wing Chun practioner whom I respect very much. Thank you all for reading this with an open and mature mind.

 

I fought a boxer one time. He was about four inches taller than me, and weighed about two stones more. He went for me, I angled off and hit him in the floating ribs on his left side. When he fell, I stoned him with balls from the pool table (at very close range) until I was dragged off. His head had swelled up like some hideous turnip.

 

That must mean boxing's crap, then ? No. But there are a couple of Wing Chun pros there. We learn to:

 

1. Don't be there when the the attack comes

 

2. Exploit your environment - in this case pubs are full of glasses and pool cues.

 

3. Go for the soft bits.

 

4. Hit the same soft bits repeatedly until you've done the guy.

 

And I didn't use any grappling. It's the fighter, not the art.

 

>>>PS<<<

[Darth Paul]

Is it only the Wing Tsun schools that teach groundfighting/antigrappling?

 

I study a style of Wing Chun spelled Wing Tchun. It is marketed under the name Autodefence and was founded by Master Nick Smart who trained under Leung Ting in Wing Tsun. We do study ground fighting and anti-grappling. We have experienced no trouble in medium to hard contact sparring with protective gear.

[soul fighter]

I put in "Not Bad"

 

Wing Chun lacks mobility and angles, that's about it.

 

http://img24.photobucket.com/albums/v71/soulfighting/SOUL%20SONIC%20STYLE/Jab1.jpg

[Drunken Monkey]

well, but then, from what you have said, your knowledge of wing chun is very much limited.

 

tell me what closing the gap, bridging, trapping and triangulating is if not movement/mobility and angles?

[soul fighter]

well, but then, from what you have said, your knowledge of wing chun is very much limited.

 

tell me what closing the gap, bridging, trapping and triangulating is if not movement/mobility and angles?

 

Closing the gap is a step to get inside (with a NICE BIG TELEGRAPH!! ), Bridging(havent heard of it, so I can't say much about it), Trapping is about handspeed (Which is Wing Chun's prime pro), ANd triangulating I'm guess is a type of Wing Chun footwork (Which is MUCH more complicated than just shuffling )

[White Warlock]

Closing the gap is a step to get inside (with a NICE BIG TELEGRAPH!! ),

nope

Bridging(havent heard of it, so I can't say much about it),

...

Trapping is about handspeed (Which is Wing Chun's prime pro),

Nope

ANd triangulating I'm guess is a type of Wing Chun footwork (Which is MUCH more complicated than just shuffling )

And there it is... you're 'guessing.'

 

Will agree with DM. May i request you not talk trash about something you have insufficient knowledge of?

 

Every system has its strengths and weaknesses, and it's okay to discuss them... but do so knowledgeably and ask questions on those things you don't have sufficient knowledge of... and are wanting to understand more of. I doubt anyone here needs to be impressed by posturing. 'Closing' your mind at such a young age is detrimental to your growth in the martial arts, and otherwise.

 

Anyway, wing chun is an effective system, but it is not designed for 'sparring' or competition. It is, ultimately, designed to crowd the opposition and prevent him the opportunity to strike back. It poses the greatest risk to grapplers attempting to 'close the gap,' but once a grappler has brought a wing chun practitioner to the ground, the wing chun practitioner (assuming he's a purist) is in trouble.

[Drunken Monkey]

ahhhhh (putting on my philospeak hat)

 

but what do you consider purist?

 

a wing chun guy who only plays standing up?

 

or

 

a wing chun guy who follows the principles?

[White Warlock]

hehe, a wing chun guy who only practices wing chun.